Myanmar has reopened schools for ethnic Rakhine children in townships hit hard by recent communal violence declaring “stability” has returned, state-backed media said on Sunday, but thousands of Rohingya Muslims remain on the move from the same areas.

Rakhine state has been torn apart after unrest erupted in late August, when raids by Rohingya militants sparked a massive army crackdown which the UN says amounts to “ethnic cleansing”.

Half of Rakhine’s roughly 1 million Rohinyga Muslim population has fled to Bangladesh since then, creating the world’s largest refugee crisis, claiming their villages were incinerated by the army and Rakhine mobs.

Violence has also displaced nearly 30,000 ethnic Rakhine, who are Buddhists, and Hindus inside the state.

Education officials said schools had reopened in Maungdaw and Buthidaung townships “as stability returns” in the epicentre of the violence, according to a report by The Global New Light of Myanmar on Sunday.

The Rohingya are not recognised as an ethnic group and are instead labelled by the state as “Bengalis”, stripping them of legal status in the country.

More than 2,000 Rohingya – many from Buthidaung – have massed on the coast over the last week hoping to make the dangerous transit to Bangladesh as basic supplies dry up and they receive threats from their Rakhine neighbours.